Archive for the ‘channel marketing’ Tag
Social Marketing Changes Everything Part 1 – Introduction
Filed under: General Marketing, Marketing for CEOs, Marketing Strategy | Tags: change the rules, channel marketing, competitive advantaged, customer experience, customer referrals, Lead Generation, marketing communications, Marketing Strategy, product management, public relations, revenue generation, Social CRM, social marketing, Social Media, social-optimized, web 2.0 marketing, Web Marketing
Comments (3) If I asked the question “Who wants better leads, increased revenues?” I would see every hand up in the room.
” Through social media?” I would still see pretty much every hand in the room raised.
If I told them that they would have to changes their approach to marketing, lead generation, customer satisfaction, and their view of their market, how many hands would stay up? If I told them that they would have to take some risks, expose themselves (metaphorically), do something unconventionally, challenge their team, etc. would you find any takers? a few…
Now, if I told them that every one of their competitors is planning on doing this and that they could choose to do it early to get “competitive advantaged” or they could wait and be a “me-too”. I would find the room in two camps, split between the optomists in the face of a economy poised to recover and the business convervatives who are trying to maintain what the have in the face of a recessed economy.
I read a lot online from social media “experts”, but other than they advocate the use of social networks like Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Youtube, etc. for business (Screaming ad-like tweets “You too can make money”…) I struggle to break through the noise to connect with the real innovators who have a strategic approach to integrating social media into their full marketing programs.
Here is my two cents worth – Social Media is fundamentally changing Marketing. In my mind, it is not about how you add the social networks to your marketing channels of communication (they should be thought of as channels), but rather how you rethink marketing and brand management. The initial wave of website in the mid-90’s started to a fundamental shift in marketing. I talk to a lot of companies about social media, Web 2.0, social CRM, social networking, etc. Some think it is a FAD, most think it is fun and interesting, some are trying to use it for business, but some are taking advantage of the rest to drive growth. This shift in marketing is happening again.
I am not talking about occasionally sending something out to the 132 people on Linkedin, 675 college buddies on Facebook, and the 3750 followers that you have built on twitter (these aren’t my numbers). I am not talking about building online forums into your website. Not talking about use meebo to chat occasionally with an ex-colleague. I can go on, but the point is that social-optimized, Web 2.0 interactions are creeping into the way that we all do business. You can use them or you can rethink your approach to leverage them to “change the rules”.
If you are a “changes the rules” type, you will need to subscribe to the RSS feed and have to come back to read the rest of the series on Social Marketing Changes Everything Part 2 – 5. I can’t fit all of the explanation into the a single post. This multi-part series will provide information on social marketing and answer the following questions:
- What is Social Marketing? (I can already hear, not another buzz word…. but think about my Web Marketing reference above)
- Why is a new definition required beyond Social Media, Social Networking, Social CRM, or Web 2.0 Marketing? (gotcha there)
- So what? Why should I worry about this? Hint: Revenue Generation and Customer Referrals (I assumed this would be important to you)
- What does a Social Marketing strategy look like?
- What does a Social Marketing Roadmap look like for this?
- How do I leverage what I am already doing?
- How do I build a Social Marketing Business Case?
- How do I measure Social Marketing?
Now that I got the major questions out of the way, let move next into the definitions;
Social Marketing – The re-orientation of traditional marketing to reflect the new post-digital, network relationship oriented, and influencer-driven social interactions. Social Marketing leverages a multi-channel, multi-directional approach towards building relationships with a transition away from the structured marketing roles like; product management, marketing communications, PR, Channel Mktg, & sales support. Instead, marketing is reoriented around enabling the key interactions that support the awareness, influence, interest, buying, and referral processes. ( it is a mouthful, but I am working on getting it down to one simple sentence. Give me your thoughts and I will incorporate in my next post)
Social Media – Basically, you have the social networks that you participate and the online communities that you own which are built into your corporate website. See my post on Social Media is Like Fishing for more details.
Online Communities – communities of interest built upon a foundation of Web 2.0 social networking tools; profile, blog, wiki, social bookmarking, calendaring, media sharing, etc that enable the user to interact with other users and content through the website. See my post on Online Community Blueprint for more details.
Post-Digital – If everything is becoming digital, why does digital matter? The buyer doesn’t really care if the interaction is on the web, they just want to get what they need. A lot of marketing still segments online and offline which creates an artificial barrier to developing a seamless customer experience. Social Media is changing buyer behavior, coming more fluid, and marketing must adjust the model to to support the reflected changes. See my post on the Changing Role of the CMO for further explanation.
The next part of the series will explore a new model for thinking about reorienting marketing towards interactions.
Rosenhaft
Half Rose Blog 